“Some writers simply possess the Gift. No matter what they bring out . . . it’s sure to be compulsively readable. That’s certainly the case with Terry Pratchett.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Regulars of FRA will know that I’m a big fan of the Discworld novels and worship at the altar of Pterry. Why I took so long to get around to reading this is therefore a bit of a mystery.

I suspect that I just didn’t want to read his “real” stuff as I knew it would be really hard and make the ache of his loss just a little more sharp.

This of course, turned out to be true but so did the opposite. I also laughed out loud multiple times – often on the London tube which, as regular commuters will tell you, means it must be funny.

This is an eclectic collection of Pterry’s short, factual writings: newspaper articles, convention speeches, forwards etc. It contains such gems as care and feeding of authors at a book signing, how a book comes together and – of course, the frustration and anger he felt on being diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s at an early age.

This is a fascinating insight into a man with vast reserves of intelligence and humanity and I’m not ashamed to say it’s made me love him all the more.

 

Reviewed by:

Debbie McCarthy

Added 26th December 2018

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Debbie McCarthy